Mount Erebus

Erebus, Mount,

volcanic peak, 12,280 ft (3,743 m) high, on Ross Island, in the Ross Sea, E Antarctica. One of the loftiest volcanoes of the world, it was discovered in 1841 by the British explorer James C. RossRoss, Sir James Clark,1800–1862, British polar explorer and rear admiral. In 1818 he accompanied his uncle, Sir John Ross, in search of the Northwest Passage and commanded the Erebus......Click the link for more information. and named for one of his two ships. It was climbed in 1908 by a party under a British geologist, T. W. E. DavidDavid, T. W. E.(Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth), 1858–1935, Australian geologist and explorer, b. near Cardiff, Wales. David came to Australia in 1882 as an assistant geological surveyor. In 1891 he was appointed professor of geology and physical geography at the Univ......Click the link for more information.. It was last active in 1991 and is one of only three active volcanoes in Antarctica.

Most of the DNA from plants and animals that the researchers sampled from caves at Mount Erebus, one of the biggest volcanoes on Antarctica, could be found in other locations on the continent, but not all.

McMurdo stands on Ross Island, and therefore at the center of the landmarks that served as points of reference for the earliest expeditions: Observation Hill, an enormous and steeply graded mound rising out of the backside of town; Discovery Hut, the bleakest and coldest of British explorer Scott's shelters (unwisely modeled after houses built in the Australian outback); nearby Castle Rock, an ominous and rugged edifice sitting atop an area covert in its habit of covering up deadly crevasses; and, forty miles off, Mount Erebus, which emits a delicate plumage of gaseous activity while simultaneously existing as almost everyone's secret darling.

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